Don’t run away from your comfort zone.
It has a lot to teach you.
I have a pet peeve with the topic of comfort zones: a lot is said about leaving them, but virtually nobody specifies what kind of comfort zone we should leave.
You’re not supposed to run away from healthy comfort.
Maybe some gurus out there are naive about that — and maybe other ones are just disingenuous — because we very rarely see anyone making the distinction above. And it’s vital.
Comfort is comfort is comfort… It’s always scary and difficult to leave it behind. So, there is some truth to the common saying that we have attachment to our comfort zones and we need to put time and energy, intentionally, into leaving them. We won’t leave them without making this effort or without facing our fears head-on. Hence, sometimes we need coaching. Okay. That’s not entirely wrong.
However…
Some people out there equate help with power. “I help you, and that means I have power over you”, they probably believe. This becomes apparent when they become reactive (either overtly, by exploding, or covertly, through weaponised miscommunication) whenever you say “no” to any part of their help. You see, a real helper wouldn’t do that. A real helper would honour your feedback and adapt to you because they wanna see you learn and grow in your own unique way. A dangerous cult leader, on the other hand, wants to strip you off your sense of individuality. They want to shape you to the predetermined box they already have for you. So in the end of the day, it’s all about them, and their concepts, and their world. It’s a selfish kind of “fake selflessness”. Beware those people.
What kind of comfort zone should we leave or stay in?
I’ll start with the easiest to identify:
Comfort zones we should leave.
What are they, and how do we identify them? Well… There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer, but you can ask yourself the following questions for guidance:
- Is this comfort zone enabling harm to myself and/or others?
- Do I feel stuck or limited when I’m in this comfort zone?
- Do I really like this comfort zone with all my heart… Or am I only staying in it to run away from a scary thing?
Comfort zones we should leave are all about bittersweet familiarity. The harmful comfort zone feels familiar to you, and this familiarity gives you a sense of “safety” because it’s known. Right? It’s not the unknown. The unknown is scary (or scariER) than what you already have in your situation. [Insert here your favourite saying about going for what’s certain but “kind of meh” instead of the uncertainty that could be amazing].
So, in conclusion, you should only leave the comfort zones that you don’t truly like. When you introspect, you’ll notice that the only thing keeping you in these comfort zones is fear. That’s not good. Fear isn’t positive, is it? Fear isn’t loving or good for you.
A common mistake mentors make is what I usually call “drill sergeant rhetoric”:
It feels like what we see in movies that feature military training: there’s always a drill sergeant shouting at the soldiers in training in order to motivate them by force. “Did you come here to die?!” — “NO SIR!” — “will you be little pussies and stay in comfort forever?!” — “NO SIR!” And on and on it goes. (Feel free to laugh at my example. I’ve never been in the army, I wouldn’t know the up-to-date jargon and I’m limited by movies. But I hope you guys know what I mean).
Does it work? Well… it kind of does, because in this specific context, fear motivates. You can’t really fight a war unless you’re driven by fear (fear of fighting in vain, fear that your enemy might win, etc).
But not everything in life is like that. We’re not fighting wars when we leave a friendship we outgrew, a job that is no longer providing, a relationship where love has faded away, or even a mindset that isn’t serving us.
Right?
None of these things are wars!
We can turn them into wars if we want, it’s always a choice, but they don’t have to be fought. It’s not a requirement. And fighting is very exhausting. Why fight all the time? Why not choose peace for the most part?
My reference here is metaphoric. I’m not saying mentors (psychologists, religious leaders, coaches, teachers, friends… All sorts of mentors, professional or not) LITERALLY behave like drill sergeants from time to time. No, they don’t. But it’s not literal. It’s a metaphor. I’m talking about these people’s bad habit of telling the person who seeks their help “you should leave your comfort zone. How? Oh, hm, I guess just be brave and do it”. [Insert here all the possible wordings for that exact same message to be delivered]
You see… When you imply that someone should “just be brave and do it”, are you being any different from a drill sergeant? No. It’s the same thing. A friendly tone of voice and a mindful word choice can be used, but it’s the same thing it all boils down to: telling a person to get off their arse and do the goddamn thing. Because you said so. Like a dictator.
What if there is a better way?
In order to find that out, let’s look into:
Comfort zones we shouldn’t leave.
Note the wording: I didn’t say “we don’t need to” leave these specific comfort zones. I said we shouldn’t. Because if we do, we put ourselves in trouble.
So, what are they? Let’s find out with a few questions to meditate on:
- When I’m in this comfort zone and ignore what others are saying about it, do I feel limitless and with endless possibilities?
- Does this comfort zone provide me REAL comfort and make me feel energised to seize the day?
- Do I feel nurtured and fulfilled by this comfort zone?
I’ll give you some examples:
Person 1, let’s call her Alejandra, has a vocation for speaking in public. It’s a rare calling, isn’t it? Because last time I checked, most people are afraid of public speaking… But not Alejandra! She loves it. Whenever she’s speaking to a public, she feels in her element and totally comfortable. She could do it for hours and not even see the time go by.
Person 2, Ashley, also loves teaching but will only offer her students one-on-one mentoring because she’s terrified of public speaking. She’s highly sensitive, intuitive, and has a talent for tuning into what people are feeling even if they don’t word it. She feels very at ease when people come to her for guidance and comfort, because building others up comes naturally to her.
Person 3, Heidi, loves music and composing (so she’s not your run-of-the-mill “unartistic nerd”). But she isn’t much of a “people person”, and prefers to deal with facts and figures. In fact, she went for a career in software engineering, works from home, and enjoys her alone time.
If I had only described Ashley, maybe you’d assume she’s “shy”. But in the context of this group of people above, that’s not fully true. In Heidi’s opinion, for instance, Ashley would probably be considered very outgoing! It’s all a matter of perspective.
We can’t just categorically affirm things without having context, you know.
What’s more: Alejandra’s comfort zone is probably a nightmare for both Heidi and Ashley. It can be unthinkable to imagine someone else feeling COMFORTABLE doing the very thing that causes you DEEP DISCOMFORT.
Well… I just described a hypothetical group of friends above. But what if I was talking about a doctor and patient relationship, psychologist and patient, teacher and student, etc? Don’t these professionals ALSO project their own experience? Don’t they have “oopsie” moments like that when dealing with a patient/learner whose personality is very different from their own?
Of course they do. It’s only human. We’re not machines, we’re fallible. And in projecting, sometimes we accidentally harm others by trying to get them to have the same comfort zone WE would have. This gets even worse when the person we’re projecting onto believes the projection as if it was truth. And when does that happen? Usually, when they’re not fully confident that it’s healthy and okay to protect a comfort zone…
…Because in popular lingo, all comfort zones are bad…
…And in truth, we should only beware the ones that feel unnatural for us, the ones we’re trapped into by a trauma bond.
Just because we’re not talking about careers, that doesn’t automatically mean we should throw the whole entire concept of “vocation” (or “soul calling” or whatever you prefer) out the window! Even in everyday situations, it shows up: for example, when we judge people like Ashley above and assume they “lack self-confidence” when in fact maybe the person is simply more calm and intuitive but has no problems with self-esteem… She simply displays her self-esteem through a language you don’t speak, and that’s why you can’t see it and assume it isn’t there.
Conversely, maybe you’d look at someone like Alejandra and make another judgement, and think she has no fears whatsoever… So when she befriends you and confides in you that she’s struggling with imposter syndrome, you won’t believe that, and you’ll instead judge that she’s “just fishing for compliments”. Why? Well… Because, when you’re close-minded like that, you say to yourself, confidence = being loud; insecurity = being quiet, and all else is lies. That’s that, full stop, no room for nuance!
(And don’t get me started on cultural bias…)
You can’t force “Heidi” people to have a talent for comforting people like Ashley does or persuading people like Alejandra does. Each have their own unique strengths and, sure, can teach one another the basics of what they’re good at, but they’ll never get to a point where all three will have become clones of each other. That’s because their comfort zones have never been and will never be the same. And that’s not bad. That’s natural.
Instead of projecting, let’s listen. Maybe there’s a Heidi somewhere who complains of lack of friends. Okay, sure, we can say the good old “try to be more outgoing” (however many sessions or different wordings this takes), OR we can really examine her context and see, hmm… Let’s investigate… Perhaps her family is being toxic? Her relationships at work aren’t the best for her? The people in her neighbourhood are too snobbish? It could just be a case of looking for a contract with a different company (without a need for even changing profession OR the work from home habit), moving away from the people she is not vibing with and exploring new horizons, etc… Or not even making many changes and just clearing up misunderstandings with the people in her life. Was there ever a need for her personality to “evolve” because it’s “bad” or “wrong” the way it already is? No. Heidi will be Heidi. Maybe she doesn’t even WANT to be more sociable according to the norm. Maybe she likes the way she is! And by “I have no friends” what she truly means is “I’d be happy with some acquaintances, but the current ones I have aren’t good for me”. Right? If it was Ashley complaining of lack of friends, would you think of that possibility? Yes, I bet you would. Alejandra? Yup. But just because it’s Heidi, the stereotypical introvert, complaining of lack of friends, we jump straight to blaming her natural temperament. Let’s not go down that path? That’s not very respectful to Heidi. If in the end it turns out that, indeed, she was being “a bit too much” on the reserved and avoidant spectrum, sure, by all means conclude that, but why not first explore other common causes of this problem that are unrelated to whatever the stereotypes told you about Heidi? What’s more (and I see this happening A LOT), sometimes avoidants like that are feeling happy and fulfilled with the few friends they occasionally see, but people don’t believe it and try to force them to go out more. As if saying, “oh, I see you’re lonely there” (nope. Not lonely. Just alone today and happy, thanks), “I’ll help you find more people” (please don’t)… Because in the heads of these people who are doing the projecting, “lonely” = “nobody met me to catch up during the last 24h”… But in a more avoidant person’s mind, perhaps “lonely” = “nobody met me to catch up during the last 2 months”. You see, these standards and expectations (and thus, steps to “get where we want to be”) are subjective, and we get arrogant about them and delude ourselves that we’re dealing with objectivity.
Let’s drop the arrogance, pretty please?
I’ll remind you, lest you forgot: I’m an extrovert. And yet, I came to the conclusion above about “Heidi”. How come? Well, I practise open-mindedness, simple as that. Instead of looking at someone and judging them, “oh, of course they have such-and-such life, that’s exactly what such-and-such personality gives you!”… Let’s try being kinder. Let’s try looking at things from the other person’s perspective, and going like, “How can this person get something resembling what they’re saying they want, WITHOUT changing who they are entirely?” Is that possible? More often than not, it is! But we don’t consider it because it’s not a “good enough” outcome by our own [individual, conditioned, prone to projection] lens.
This is a bit of a tangent, but: I’m recalling the time when I attended a coaching programme because I was looking for ways to become more introspective; And I had to leave in bad terms with the mentor because he couldn’t understand, at all at all, that my “poor performance” was something I, Lucy, felt very fulfilled with. I am not, and don’t want to become, the most introspective person on the planet. I just wanted the basics! What he had me practise was extremely intense [for my standards], which is why I did “barely ok” at it [according to him] but it went super well according to me. Classic case of a disconnect between what my expectations were VS what the other person PROJECTED that my expectations should be.
Conforming to a pre-established ideal isn’t always the answer, you know. In fact, last time I checked, it has never been the answer. Love it or hate it, each and every person on the planet is unique. And uniqueness comes with unique comfort zones. Yes, what’s comfortable for you will probably be someone else’s nightmare. Ain’t nothing wrong wtih that! But let’s have a bit more curiosity and less arrogance when dealing with “the other”.
